The Asian Socail Forum is in the process of putting together the another world film festival which will be held in conjunction with the ASF event in Hyderabad from 2nd January to 7th January 2003.

As neo-liberal globalisation entrenches itself more widely and deeply around the world, there is not only an ever sharper questioning of its supposed benefits and a growing resistance to its specious charms by groups like the World Social Forum on the one hand and small local initiatives on the other, but also a documentation of these critiques and counter-movements in the media.

Some of the most trenchant comments and moving critiques are to be found in the work of filmmakers from a range of cultures and countries. Some of these filmmakers represent activist groups, but many more are simply concerned citizens, individuals who use their skills to elicit, record and communicate stories that need to be told.

When we look at the empathetic, incisive and often brave works of these film and video makers, we see and hear common chords being struck by people from countries as varied as Sri Lanka, Iraq and Indonesia. The problems of marginalisation, environmental degradation, consumerist logic or ethnic/communal strife are everywhere similar, and yet specific to their cultural and political context and time and place. We know these things but the films take us there, show us, make us observe and feel. Generalizations thus acquire a local habitation and a name, statistics grow a human face.

The Asian Social Forum in January 2003 at Hyderabad provides a fitting platform for a festival of such films and videos because of the possibility of the coming together with movements and people engaged with the very themes that our work reflects! Delegates to the Forum – NGO workers, activists, academicians, interested citizens, government officials, young people – would constitute a ready and apt audience. The screenings would be held from the 3rd January to the 6th January.


The another world film festival intends to showcase films from within, or about the Asian region, but would also include important films from other countries which are relevant to all countries. Seeing these works would be useful in various ways to participants at the Forum [and we expect around 7000 delegates!]: by introducing delegates to source materials they might like to acquire and use in their own work, by reinforcing hope through the documentation of alternative models of development…

These films would be chosen not with a narrow understanding of the meaning of globalisation, but with a perspective that helps viewers make the wider connections that obtain, looking at situations ranging from the rights of indigenous communities to the position of women in developing societies to rising facism…

We invite you to enter your latest and/or most relevant work in another world film festival [please fill in the attached entry form – one per film]. And spread the word!!

In harmony,


Stalin K.
Coordinator Film Fest
Asian Social Forum